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EU age verification app to ban any Android system not licensed by Google

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  • Excuse me, censorship is not good in any way. The people should have the power to decide what they want to see, and what they want to say. Not government officials nor private platform owners.

    I was saying the EU has done some great things, not that censorship has good sides

  • violates the GDPR.

    I wouldn't be too sure. Data protection mainly binds private actors. Any data processing demanded by law is legal. You'd really have to know the finer points of the law to judge if this is ok.

    The GDPR also applies to public institutions as far as I'm aware - but most importantly the concern here is Google and data collected by Google. This data collection is in no way necessary to provide the age verification service. Most of it is not even related to it. The state legally cannot force you to agree to some corporations (i.e. Google's) terms, even if we completely ignore the GDPR.

  • The legal precedent for gaining the ability to ban content under the guise of preventing the dissemination of "obscenity" allows the future banning of "obscene" political opinions and "obscene" dissent.

    Once the "obscene" political content is banned, the language will change to "offensive".

    After "offensive" content is banned, then the language will change to "inappropriate".

    After "inappropriate", the language will change to "oppositional".

    If you believe this is a "slippery slope" fallacy, then as a counterpoint, I would refer to the actual history of the term "politically correct":

    In the early-to-mid 20th century, the phrase politically correct was used to describe strict adherence to a range of ideological orthodoxies within politics. In 1934, The New York Times reported that Nazi Germany was granting reporting permits "only to pure 'Aryans' whose opinions are politically correct".[5]

    The term political correctness first appeared in Marxist–Leninist vocabulary following the Russian Revolution of 1917. At that time, it was used to describe strict adherence to the policies and principles of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, that is, the party line.[24] Later in the United States, the phrase came to be associated with accusations of dogmatism in debates between communists and socialists. According to American educator Herbert Kohl, writing about debates in New York in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

    The term "politically correct" was used disparagingly, to refer to someone whose loyalty to the CP line overrode compassion, and led to bad politics. It was used by Socialists against Communists, and was meant to separate out Socialists who believed in egalitarian moral ideas from dogmatic Communists who would advocate and defend party positions regardless of their moral substance.

    — "Uncommon Differences", The Lion and the Unicorn[4]

    You're right but the example you gave seems to illustrate a different effect that's almost opposite — let me explain.

    The phrase "politically correct" is language which meant something very specific, that was then hijacked by the far-right into the culture war where its meaning could be hollowed out/watered down to just mean basically "polite", then used interchangeably in a motte-and-bailey style between the two meanings whenever useful, basically a weaponized fallacy designed to scare and confuse people — and you know that's exactly what it's doing by because no right-winger can define what this boogeyman really means. This has been done before with things like: Critical Race Theory, DEI, cancel culture, woke, cultural Marxism, cultural bolshevism/judeo bolshevism (if you go back far enough), "Great Replacement", "illegals", the list goes on.

  • That applies to play integrity, and a lot of getting that working is juggling various signatures and keys.
    The suggestion above which I replied to was instead about software-managed keys, something handed to the app which it then stores, where the google drm is polled to get that sacred piece of data. Since this is present in the software, it can be plainly read by the user on rooted devices, which hardware-based keys cannot.

    Play integrity is hardware based, but the eu app is software based, merely polling googles hardware based stuff somewhere in the process.

    merely polling googles hardware based stuff

    I understand. In the context of digital sovereignty, even if the linked shitty implementation is discarded (as it should be), every correct implementation will require magic DRM-like chip. This chip will be made by a US or Asian manufacturer, as the EU has no manufacturing.

  • A phone can also be shared. If it happens at scale, it will be flagged pretty quickly. It's not a real problem.

    The only real problem is the very intention of such laws.

    If it happens at scale, it will be flagged pretty quickly.

    How? In a correct implementation, the 3rd parties only receive proof-of-age, no identity. How will re-use and sharing be detected?

  • Which is why Europeans shouldn't be too eager to laugh about the US being a fascist hellhole. It could happen there again if they're not vigilant.

    Dude, I keep telling my possibly AfD voting cousin we're just a few years behind the US if things continue as they do. Our politicians aren't better people, they're just sneakier for now.

  • No one is laughing... We're horrified how the people who have been screaming "freedom" and being obnoxious about how much more free they are than anyone else in the entire universe, seem to love getting enslaved while being obnoxious about how cool it is to be enslaved.

    Europe has its problems. We've had them for generations, and right now they're getting worse. But at least we have a culture of fighting back, something americans don't.

    But at least we have a culture of fighting back, something americans don’t.

    Talk is cheap. Prove it in the coming years. I really hope you're right, because I want SOMEWHERE to not be either a coporate fascist hellholle or a collapsed country in the future..

  • Dude, I keep telling my possibly AfD voting cousin we're just a few years behind the US if things continue as they do. Our politicians aren't better people, they're just sneakier for now.

    The way that the EU has been bending over for Trump is worrying.

  • If it happens at scale, it will be flagged pretty quickly.

    How? In a correct implementation, the 3rd parties only receive proof-of-age, no identity. How will re-use and sharing be detected?

    There are 3 parties:

    1. the user
    2. the age-gated site
    3. the age verification service

    The site (2) sends the request to the user (1), who passes it on to the service (3) where it is signed and returned the same way. The request comes with a nonce and a time stamp, making reuse difficult. An unusual volume of requests from a single user will be detected by the service.

  • What's going on with Europe lately? You all really want GOOGLE of all mega corps in control of your identity?

    You're going the opposite way, it should be your right to install an alternate OS on your phone. If anything they should be banning Google licensed Android.

    We dont want it. VdL is one of the most corrupt people in policits and unfortunately has a lot of influence

  • I was saying the EU has done some great things, not that censorship has good sides

    Ah, my apologies. It was unclear

  • This post did not contain any content.

    How long before that extends to PCs and non-Windows OSes are blocked? Also, add non-Chrome browsers to that as well (that includes Edge, Chromium, Brave, etc. as well as Firefox and its forks).

  • The GDPR also applies to public institutions as far as I'm aware - but most importantly the concern here is Google and data collected by Google. This data collection is in no way necessary to provide the age verification service. Most of it is not even related to it. The state legally cannot force you to agree to some corporations (i.e. Google's) terms, even if we completely ignore the GDPR.

    Data processing mandated by law is legal. Governments can pass laws, unlike private actors. Public institutions are bound by GDPR, but can also rely on provisions that give them greater leeway.

    I don't see how that this is in any way necessary, either. But a judge may be convinced by the claim that this is industry standard best practice to keep the app safe. In any case, there may be some finer points to the law.

    The state legally cannot force you to agree to some corporations (i.e. Google’s) terms,

    I'm not too sure about that, either. For example, when you are out of work, the state will cause you trouble if you do not find offered jobs acceptable.

    It's another question, if not having access to age-gated content is so bad as to force you to do anything. Minors nominally have the same rights as full citizens, and they are to be denied access, too.

  • You're right but the example you gave seems to illustrate a different effect that's almost opposite — let me explain.

    The phrase "politically correct" is language which meant something very specific, that was then hijacked by the far-right into the culture war where its meaning could be hollowed out/watered down to just mean basically "polite", then used interchangeably in a motte-and-bailey style between the two meanings whenever useful, basically a weaponized fallacy designed to scare and confuse people — and you know that's exactly what it's doing by because no right-winger can define what this boogeyman really means. This has been done before with things like: Critical Race Theory, DEI, cancel culture, woke, cultural Marxism, cultural bolshevism/judeo bolshevism (if you go back far enough), "Great Replacement", "illegals", the list goes on.

    I see your point. I should've limited my citation to the phrase's authoritarian origins from the early 20th century.

    To clarify, the slippery slope towards "political correctness" I wanted to describe is a sort of corporate techno-feudalist language bereft of any real political philosophy or moral epistemology. It is the language of LinkedIn, the "angel investor class", financiers, cavalier buzzwords, sweeping overgeneralizations, and hyperbole. Yet, fundamentally, it will aim to erase any class awareness, empiricism, or contempt for arbitrary authority. The idea is to impose an avaricious financial-might-makes-right for whatever-we-believe-right-now way of thinking in every human being.

    What I want to convey is that there is an unspoken effort by authoritarians of the so-called "left" and "right" who unapologetically yearn for the hybridization of both Huxley's A Brave New World and Orwell's 1984 dystopian models, sometimes loudly proclaimed and other times subconsciously suggested.

    These are my opinions and not meant as gospel.

  • Its not the populace, our politicians just like in the US have gone rogue. People are voting for the nutters due to anti immigration propaganda and so increasingly getting far right. Its happening across the entire western world and its bad news for everyone.

    Except this isn't even the right wing nutters doing it. These are mainstream politicians executing their power grabbing neolib agenda, with very little democratic oversight or public debate.

  • European Digital identity

    looks inside:

    Hosted on GitHub in the US 👏

    That's ironic

  • Ah, my apologies. It was unclear

    My bad

    My instance could also hint at it 😉

  • I see your point. I should've limited my citation to the phrase's authoritarian origins from the early 20th century.

    To clarify, the slippery slope towards "political correctness" I wanted to describe is a sort of corporate techno-feudalist language bereft of any real political philosophy or moral epistemology. It is the language of LinkedIn, the "angel investor class", financiers, cavalier buzzwords, sweeping overgeneralizations, and hyperbole. Yet, fundamentally, it will aim to erase any class awareness, empiricism, or contempt for arbitrary authority. The idea is to impose an avaricious financial-might-makes-right for whatever-we-believe-right-now way of thinking in every human being.

    What I want to convey is that there is an unspoken effort by authoritarians of the so-called "left" and "right" who unapologetically yearn for the hybridization of both Huxley's A Brave New World and Orwell's 1984 dystopian models, sometimes loudly proclaimed and other times subconsciously suggested.

    These are my opinions and not meant as gospel.

    I get what you mean. You're saying we're sliding towards something that brings back political correctness in its original definition, and I agree with you.

    The idea is to impose an avaricious financial-might-makes-right

    This resonates a lot. I'd argue we're already there. All this talk of "meritocracy" (fallaciously opposed to "DEI"), the prosperity gospel (that one's even older), it's all been promoting this idea of worthiness determined by net worth. Totalitarianism needs a socially accepted might-makes-right narrative wherever it can find it, then that can be the foundation for the fascist dogma/cult that will justify the regime's existence and legitimize its disregard for human life. Bonus points if you can make that might-makes-right narrative sound righteous (e.g. "merit" determines that you "deserve" your wealth, when really it's a circular argument: merit is never questioned for those who have the wealth, it's always assumed because how else could they have made that much money!).

  • There are 3 parties:

    1. the user
    2. the age-gated site
    3. the age verification service

    The site (2) sends the request to the user (1), who passes it on to the service (3) where it is signed and returned the same way. The request comes with a nonce and a time stamp, making reuse difficult. An unusual volume of requests from a single user will be detected by the service.

    from a single user

    Neither 2 nor 3 should receive information about the identity of the user, making it difficult to count the volume of requests by user?

  • from a single user

    Neither 2 nor 3 should receive information about the identity of the user, making it difficult to count the volume of requests by user?

    Strictly speaking, neither needs to know the actual identity. However, the point is that both are supposed to receive information about the user's age. I'm not really sure what your point is.

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    lyra_lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zoneL
    That's weird, I can still access all my main sites on the surface with no VPN. One site's mirror hasn't even changed domain. I still haven't seen any proof of these attacks on the legal side
  • AI Leaves Digital Fingerprints in 13.5% of Scientific Papers

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    F
    So they established that language patterns measured by word frequency changed between 2022 and 2024. But did they also analyse frequencies across other 2-year time periods? How much difference is there for a typical word? It looks like they have a per-frequency significance threshold but then analysed all words at once, meaning that random noise would turn up a bunch of "significant" results. Maybe this is addressed in the original paper which is not linked.
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    It really depends on the company. Some look for any way to squeeze you. Others are pretty decent and probably more efficient as they dont waste as many working hours on bullshit claims and claim resolution. Also if i rent a car i want things to go smoothly. I got places to be. You make my life easy, ill happily pay again and do my best to make yours easy too.
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    This is also going to be used against the general populace. Setting up the Techno-Fuedal Surveillance state. The Militaries of the future will be policing their own countries more and more. Very soon the regular police will all have masks and blacked out helmets.
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    That would be 1 in 4 users and that's just not accurate at all. What you mean to say is 25% of Windows users still use windows 7. Its still an alarming statistic, and no wonder bruteforce cyberattacks are still so effective today considering it hasn't received security updates in like 10 years. I sincerely hope those people aren't connecting their devices to the internet like, at all. I'm fairly sure at this point even using a Debian based distro is better than sticking to windows 7.
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    Epic is a piece of shit company. The only reason they are fighting this fight with Apple is because they want some of Apple’s platform fees for themselves. Period. The fact that they managed to convince a bunch of simpletons that they are somehow Robin Hood coming to free them from the tyrant (who was actually protecting all those users all along) is laughable. Apple created the platform, Apple managed it, curated it, and controlled it. That gives them the right to profit from it. You might dislike that but — guess what? Nobody forced you to buy it. Buy Android if Fortnight is so important to you. Seriously. Please. We won’t miss you. Epic thinks they have a right to profit from Apple’s platform and not pay them for all the work they did to get it to be over 1 billion users. That is simply wrong. They should build their own platform and their own App Store and convince 1 billion people to use it. The reason they aren’t doing that is because they know they will never be as successful as Apple has been.
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    Of course they don't click anything. Google search has just become a front-end for Gemini, the answer is "served" up right at the top and most people will just take that for Gospel.
  • No Frills PCB Brings USB-C Power To The Breadboard

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    coelacanthus@lemmy.kde.socialC
    and even without it, you'll get 150mA @ 5V by default out of the USB 3 host upstream and up to 900mA with some pretty basic USB negotiation in a protocol that dates from USB 1.0 That's wrong. With USB Type-C, you can get the power up to 3A @ 5V with just two 5.1kΩ resistor on CC pins.